


The Smallest Council

by NeverAgainEvan



Series: Different Roads Sometimes Lead to the Same Castle [6]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Post Long Night - Freefrom, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 11:23:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20947529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverAgainEvan/pseuds/NeverAgainEvan
Summary: Nymeria and Jon bond and flirt on a balcony after a long day of ruling.





	The Smallest Council

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on one of the very first pics i have read, it was about Jon and Nymeria both on the small council and hey fall in love. It was unfinished and deleted i guess because i never found it ever again.

Jon’s favorite spot happened to be the most deserted and secluded spot in the Red Keep. Intentional, perhaps, though Aegon and Dany would never get it out of him. His favorite spot also happened to be a balcony, decorated with stag and dragon railings, recently refurbished Jon knew. Well, recently as in over two decades ago compared to the three hundred years of history the Red Keep has stood on Aegon’s High Hill. Before he assumed the carved stags and dragons were in a harmonious tumble, now all Jon saw and touched was a stag coring a dragon savagely.

Jon did not have much complaints about it. He didn’t mind about the imagery, it was true, he thought honestly. Robert Baratheon cored Prince Rhaegar on the Trident with a brutal swing of a warhammer to his chest. A swing so strong and powerful that it made Tobho Mott’s superior black-steel armor fold like the most brittle bronze seen to man.

The balcony was deep in Maegor’s Holdfast, on the fourth level, in the royal wing of the fourth floor. But with so few Targaryens left, the five royal wings in as many floors had been unoccupied and quiet. Sometimes when there was a feast or important smaller great councils they would be filled. But now, months before a feast, years before another great council, and Dany on Dragonstone. It was peaceful and quiet.

_Sweet quiet_, he breathed in the crisp high-altitude air as he stepped onto the balcony. It brought a scent of freshly planted flowers and sweet buns being made in the ovens. Aegon would be happy. He loved those way too sweet buns. He disliked the cream filled ones, though, frankly, loved the apple filled sweet buns, and Jon would deny all who asked and japed about it. A few knew it reminded him of the North, eating apples and bread with his siblings. Especially Arya.

He leaned over the balustrade and watched the people move like beetles in the rebuilding city. Here and there a run-down building in the process of being torn down. On the city’s walls close to the Red Keep burn marks could still be seen. Even with the savage and constant rain of spring.

It has only been four years since Cersei’s fall, and three since the Long Night. Though six years had passed, King’s Landing still felt and showed the pains of Cersei’s wildfire and Aegon’s response.

He agreed on much with his brother, but the way he goes about his tasks sometimes pisses Jon off, and confused him. _We just think differently,_ Jon Connington as well had said as much after their fourth argument in one day in one of the very first post-war council meetings, not long after the Long Night.

“Nice night, brethren?” A silky voice flew through the wind to land in Jon’s heart, and he felt himself fidget. He never heard her footsteps. How could he have been deaf to noise?

“Lady Nym,” he greeted the tall and illustrious woman before him.

He swallowed as he took in the Dornish woman before him. She was graceful in all she wore, and today she wore a black velvet robe slashed with white and grey, her long black hair usually in a braid corded in gold wire was long, free, and wavy. Slender as willow and long-legged, she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen.

She sauntered to the balustrade beside him. She has served on the small council since Cersei’s last days, only expertly surviving the wildfire and Cersei’s madness and Aegon’s sack by taking up in Baelor’s Sept with her sister Tyene, who sadly died in a wildfire blast.

And he would be remiss of his fellow small council member to not be edge around her. In Dornish silks and Myrish lace she was harmless. Her daggers would be visible in those outfits. But this velvet robe she chose could hide at least ten daggers under it.

“Lovely evening, Lord Snow.” She always called him Lord Snow, or brethren on behalf of their shared bastard blood. Never Prince Jon, or Targaryen. He didn’t feel good about it, nor glad about it. It was just neutral, like all their conversations and interactions so far.

_Except for that one dream I had of her_, he thought with a blush.

He turned to look upon the vast, sprawling city, hoping she didn’t see his blush. “It is a lovely evening, Lady Nym.” He responded cautiously.

A Sand Snake does not corner one for no reason. And though she served as the Dornish advisor in the small council, she very much so had a list of informants and little birds gathering and telling her secrets, while not as immeasurable as their own master of whispers, was capable and sure of obtaining information.

She stood too close, and her body gave off a radiant heat in the evening chill of spring. She smiled up at him, and he was confused. “Do you know what today is?” She asked cryptically.

He shook his head, “Smith’s Day? No that was yesterday, or is it tomorrow?”

“Smith’s Day is in a sennight,” she smiled. “You have to speak and do work on the Street of Steel remember? You agreed when Aegon put out that a council member should participate.”

He groaned, “I will never understand your southern seven gods.”

“if Tyene was here she would be horrified about what just spewed from your mouth.” She giggled weakly and her smile was a little strained.

It made his own heart ache, “What day is it then?”

Nymeria’s smile was as infectious as he remembered, till she reached inside her robes, and Jon tensed immediately. His hand flew to his sword but did not unsheathe it. Nym was dangerous but no idiot. He was a prince, even when he did not feel like one, but nevertheless he was and killing him would be a death sentence.

If Nym noticed his tension and hand she reacted not at all. She slowly pulled out a glass bottle. It was long and green, and new by the cork still in it.

“It’s my father’s nameday,” she gleamed. Her smile was so big and wide it felt like a second sun had landed on his secluded balcony. “This was his favorite Volantene spirit, the _Tiger’s Leash_!”

The annoyance he still felt at her disturbing his peace time was quickly fading as she enthusiastically grinned about her father’s nameday and the Volantene spirit. He even laughed when the cork went soaring into the horizon.

“No chalices?”

“No chalices. Is that fine Lord Snow? Would _Prince_ Snow, his highness, prefer to sip from a chalice studded in gems?”

“No chalices,” he grunted as her smile kept coming easier and easier to her face. Why she was here spending this time with him confused Jon, but she had a charm about her that drew him in.

Her deep red full lips put the glass to her mouth and took two quick gulps of the spirit. He watched the gulps mesmerized, her beautiful milk-white neck moving in a non-sexual way that attracted him.

She stretches it out toward him. He took and decided a big gulp would be appropriate and proper. It went down easy for her, why not him.

He was sorely mistaken.

One gulp and it threatened to spill back up, his mouth was on fire, and tasted like nothing he had ever tasted. Plain and grainy. He retreated the bottle before coughing into his arm.

“Gods, seven bloody hells,” he hacked another cough.

Nym laughed goodheartedly and pounds his back, “Breathe, Jon, breathe.” If he wasn’t busy hacking up his lungs, he would notice she called him Jon, not Lord Snow. “_Tiger’s Leash_ is very potent. Father had a taste for things that were dangerous. I got it from him.”

“My throat can attest it is very strong.” He grumbled to ease the burning itch in his throat.

“Stronger than northern ale?”

He chuckled, “Nowhere close. Northern ale is wine compared to that.” Nym laughed sweetly. “I thought Volantene wine was orange and very sweet?”

Her dark eyes bore into him, which he now noticed weren’t black, but as dark as black amethyst from Asshai. _She was and is of the Old Blood in Volantis_, he reminded himself. “There are many kinds of drinks in Volantis. Does my lord prefer a sweet tonic to a heart-stopping spirit?”

Her eyes betrayed none of her thoughts, which left him unsure if she was teasing or deadly serious. “I prefer what you do, Lady Nym.” He reached out and grabbed the bottle still in her hand. Her hands were still wrapped around the neck of the bottle though, and they were soft and cold as the evening wind blew through them.

He found his touch lingering on her hand. His larger, rougher, and hairy hand wrapped all around hers and the bottle. She looked down upon their almost entwined hands and shot a cocked eyebrow upon him.

Thrown out of his stupor by her eyes, he grabbed the spirit and took another sip. It went down much easier and had less of a kickback. He sighed in relief as he felt it go down his body and warm everything.

After that they spent the next hour taking turns drinking the spirit till it was less than a sip left. Talking of Prince Oberyn and others they lost.

“My father was difficult, but he was the only man I have ever loved. He showed me how to hold a dagger properly, he killed courters who defiled my name. He defended me. And when he was gone who was left but me to defend myself?”

To hear Nymeria speak of Oberyn made him seem wholly different but also similar of all he had heard of him from gossipers and a Ser Daemon Sand. In actuality, Ser Daemon did not tell him of Prince Oberyn, but unkindly remarked on how if he was still alive Jon would not have set one foot near Aegon.

Now, Jon was sure he would have been assassinated if Oberyn lived. Him and Dany were the last two dragon riders, and Aegon’s mount Viserion had left as soon as the Great Other’s presence had vanished. Which made no sense to Jon, Viserion was the most attached to Dany of all the dragons, though Drogon was her mount, Drogon was independent and never liked Dany on his back. Lately Drogon has been increasingly lazy and decided as he was now 20 meters in length and a near 50 meters wingspan he could be.

Robb, Oberyn, Tyene, Ned Stark, Maester Aemon, Mance Rayder, and countless others spilled from their mouths as the spirit was drained sip after sip.

“Ned was the father I had and loved, but Mance saved a woman I thought was my sister and lost his life for it. But he taught he much. Though I regret taking so long to trust him. He became the father I needed during the Long Night.”

“Uncle Doran was the uncle I loved and despised. He was the opposite of my father, and I loved him, but he saw what a young me never saw. Now I see what he wanted. _Peace_. It only took four years, and four long years of losing thousands to see what he wanted me and my sisters to see. What we were blind to.”

Somehow on Jon’s fourth drink and Nym’s sixth they could not stand. Their legs had given up and turned wobbly and needed to sit. She threw her arms around his waist to keep her balance and his.

He searched for a seat and saw a settee near the archway into the ballroom, the only entrance to Jon’s secluded balcony. The lone settee with its plush pillows and silk furbishing all in yellow and gold marked it as a survivor of the previous dynasty. He did not care, and he was sure Nym didn’t as well.

They fell upon the settee together, in a tangle of limbs, and somehow, she did not let the last sip of the spirit spill. He was on the bottom and she on top, legs entangled, her free hand was lost behind him, her long hair that smelled of peaches covered his neck and chest as her chin laid on his right pectoral.

“I miss him,” she mumbled.

“I miss my father too.”

“All three taken before their times. They did not deserve their deaths, and we did not deserve the aftermath.” He frowned slightly at her inclusion of Rhaegar.

“What men are deserved is rarely given,” Jon slurred. Against his will his arms encircled her. A sober part of his mind was cautious of the knives and daggers under her velvet robes he was sure to feel. Yet he felt none, just the skin and bones of a woman under the soft velvet robes. His sober mind was confused, and that part was already fading as more of the spirit rushed through him.

“What are you deserved? What are we deserved?” She looked up at him.

Many things ran through his mind. Several years ago, he would have said Winterfell, even though he knew it was not his place. Dragonstone ran through his mind like a bitter taste. He was heir to Aegon and Daenerys, but he felt Dany deserved a home more than he, besides he has duties as Hand. He cannot live on Dragonstone.

That bitter thought evaporated when he remembered the days after the Long Night and Jon surprised Dany with every door on Dragonstone painted red. She had cried and hugged him. Aegon who was not in a good mood since Viserion had flown off, was smiling when she was laughing in joy.

Aegon wanted Daenerys but felt he deserved the Iron Throne, those two don’t mix for her. It was either she takes the throne, or he does. He doesn’t get her. Dany had found her love, Edric Dayne. The man who saved Jon’s life, his former squire and the owner of the sword Jon used to end the Great Other’s thrall, Dawn.

Rarely in life one gets what they need and deserve Jon found.

“Jon?” He looked down at her, black waves blocked her eyes. “What are you deserved?”

“I don’t know.” Then it all came out. “I was born and raised to serve not to desire.” He took a shuddering breath. “First it was Robb, then the Lord Commander Mormont, then I served all the living, then Rickon, then Dany, then Aegon. Never myself.” Gods this spirit had gone through him like wildfire. They should call it wildfire. “I never knew what I wanted beside what was coveted by those I served. Winterfell, a wife, peace, Dragonstone, and now peace again. I’m only one-and-twenty and I have gray in my beard.”

“It makes you look noble.”

He blushed slightly, or the spirit was in his head now stronger than before. “Well you always look immaculate.”

She giggled; the vibrations sent sparks deep into his skin. “Lord Snow knows big words, who taught you that, your maester?”

“I thought I was Jon now?” he pouted.

She froze, “Have I said Jon?”

“A couple of times.” Now she was the one blushing. It looked way prettier on her than it would ever on him. “What are you deserved Nym?”

That had her looking up, and her blush spreading rapidly. From his angle he could see down her chest, but he looked away for her honor. Though she was blushing, her eyes were lost. “I don’t know as well. What have I done with my life?”

She looked away, and he gently prodded her back and with his eyes alone told her to continue. “I have done as father and Prince Doran, rest their souls, ordered and raised me to do all my life. I like serving on the council and being in charge of things. As a bastard I have risen high. Though I feel incomplete. I’m nearing the end of my childbirth years with no husband, no lovers.”

“The Fowlers,” he stated, remembering hearing of her and the Fowler twins from Trystane and Arianne on their last visit.

“The Fowlers have married Jon. Jeyne some Dornish lord, and Jennelyn married some Northern lord under Dany’s orders. We weren’t even together by the time they’ve married.” He gripped her back harder. “I receive letters sometimes. Tales of their children and families, and how they miss me.”

“Not everyone needs a child to be happy,” he said. He does really believe that, but children were needed. The Wars of the last three decades, the Long Night and the winter had killed many people. Too many people. Millions. As Hand he had access to census reports, and if he and Tyrion did their numbers right every kingdom had lost near a quarter of their population.

“Of course, not!” She argued. “I’m just saying, isn’t that what you want? What every man wants is to pass on their name.” She says bashful.

Jon smiled then, it had been a while since anyone has shown interests in him without wanting his titles and their children as heirs. Not to say Nym might not want that, but she did seek him out to talk of things other than politics. And his time with her has been enlightening and pleasant. And he would say her chest pressed against his abdomen would say very pleasant.

It has been a while since Jon has seen genuine affection towards himself. Since Ygritte and Val and Wynafryd Manderly.

“Nym if I was ever with someone as smart and capable and ferocious and loyal to their people as you are, I would never force a child upon them.” He smiled in thought. “Not every man and not every woman can make life. A marriage shouldn’t be based on children, but love.”

It was silent for a while after he spoke. Nym had taken the last sip of the spirit and let it roll on the red stone floor of the balcony. She was quiet for so long he thought she had fallen asleep.

She lifted off his chest with a grunt. “I must go, the spirit has deafened my sense.”

Jon helped her rise onto her feet. Her slippers were white and gray, that matched her black slashed with grey and white robes. If Jon didn’t know better, she was dressing in Stark colors. For him, style, or convenience Jon did not know?

“Are you sure? I can find another bottle.” He suddenly didn’t want this, whatever this was, to end.

“Oh,” she smiled thinly. Thin smiles were not meant for her full lips. “Does Lord Snow want me and not someone like me?”

“I didn’t… No, it wasn’t meant… A figure of speech… Anyone would want you!” He flabbergasted his way through defending his words, just now realizing how they could have sounded to someone else.

She silenced him softly, “Shush, Jon, shush. I know.” She walked into his chest, her head just under his chin. “Take me, Jon.”

He grabbed her chin, “I think I found what I deserve,” he leaned down and kissed her passionately.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone know the pic i speak of and can find it would be appreciated!
> 
> You know the deal, kudos and comments are appreciated, they really help me write faster!
> 
> Edit: forgot to mention, Stormbringer will be back soon!


End file.
